EFF claim Fees Commission report promotes segregation

Jacob Zuma released the findings on the Fees Commission report, and the EFF have responded, by outright rejecting the report’s findings.

The party released a statement on Monday, with EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi claiming the report’s findings will create “class segregation”.

The president had finally released the report after being in his possession for over 2 months. Zuma announced that governmentis unable to fund free education across the board but can only be funded for TVET colleges.

Ndlozi says these findings create the notion that those who attend universities can afford higher education, as opposed to those in TVET colleges.

“It proposes an income contingent loan for those who cannot afford within universities, in particular, the missing middle,” Ndlozi says.

“However, we know that already South Africans are over-indebted, thus young people will simply transition from youth to adulthood in indebtedness. The Commission is, therefore, asking the country to simply position the responsibility on future taxpayers and it is not sustainable.”

Ndlozi believes the findings will see segregation not only according to class, but as well as race.

“This segregation will also take the form of race, where predominantly black students will attend TVET colleges, and the majority of white students will attend universities.”

“We, therefore, reject the recommendations as they will sustain a segregated student community where the poor, no matter how talented intellectually they are, will go to TVET colleges. And the rich, no matter how intellectually untalented they are, will go to universities.

“The point is to make education and training only about talent and comprehensive development of human resources and not about affordability.

The EFF believe that government could fund all students in South Africa regardless of whether they chose TVET or University qualifications.

“The EFF has made concrete proposals regarding the expansion of our tax base by nationalising mines and banks to allow the government to source more funding for higher education and training.

“The responsibility of educating young people must not be placed on a loan scheme from the private sector,” said Ndlozi.

“The EFF believes it to be a matter of human rights for education to be de-commodified.”